Thou shalt, after naming your children from the above lists, call them by strange nicknames such as: Ike, Eli, Polly, Dolly, Sukey, making them difficult to trace.

Thou shalt NOT use any middle names on any legal documents or census reports, and only where necessary, you may use only initials on legal documents.

Thou shalt learn to sign all documents illegibly so that your surname can be spelled, or misspelled, in various ways: Hicks, Hickes, Hix, Hixe, Hucks, Kicks.

Thou shalt, after no more then 3 generations, make sure that all family records are lost, misplaced, burned in a court house fire, or buried so that NO future trace of them can be found.

Thou shalt propagate misleading legends, rumors, & vague innuendo regarding your place origination.
a. You may have come from: England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales....or Iran.
b. You may have American Indian ancestry of the______tribe......
c. You may have descended from one of 3 brothers that came over from______.

Ohmygoodness - this is incredibly funny! I had to read it out to my adult un-genealogical son, and he laughed out loud too! Yup, my ancestors were as obedient as yours (but we had more Wm, Jas, FW, for the guys, and Sarah, Hanna or was it Anna or Anne, for the girls).

This is soooo MY family! I've never thought of my ancestors as fitting the norm but apparently there are more of us out there with the same problem than I would have thought. Thanks for the good laugh.

ROFL, absolutely TRUE, I think I've found these same "Thou Shalt"s occurring repeatedly in some of my family lines! Especially those from Germany or Scandinavian countries! Gotta love the naming systems of the past, great-uncle what's-his-name that fought a bear & killed it with a knife by cutting out it's tongue (thus the scar) only later to see it also written of him that he liked to tell entertaining stories to the children, um yep. I think I can relate to just about every single item on your list!

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About Me

Sometimes I want to jump back in time, into the lives of my ancestors. Not to stay, of course -- too many modern conveniences I'd rather not do without -- but to meet them and watch their interactions with each other. Since I can't do that, I spend time learning about them and the times in which they lived. I look forward to meeting them. I've been seriously searching for my ancestors for nearly 8 years. I plan to continue indefinitely.
If you think we might have ancestors in common or you'd like to contact me for any other reason, please email me at myancestorsandme @ gmail.com.